A van driver mounted a kerb and hit pedestrians in Toronto, Canada, on Monday, leaving ten people dead and 15 others injured. Witnesses described seeing the vehicle swerve to deliberately hit pedestrians, leaving a pushchair "split in half" and hitting people sitting on a bench. A man was later arrested after a tense stand-off with armed police, during which video footage showed him telling officers he had a gun and shouting: "Shoot me in the head". He was named by police as Alek Minassian, a 25-year-old student.
Addressing a news conference in the evening, Mark Saunders, the Toronto police chief, said the suspect had not been armed and that there was nothing so far to suggest terrorism as a motive.
"It's very clear from a general perspective that the actions looked deliberate," he said, describing how the van had driven on the wrong side of the road and mounted the pavement.
Numerous body bags were seen in the street after the attack, according to testimonies of people in the city, with one describing the scene as a “war zone”. There were also accounts of victims with faces “full of blood” and twisted limbs, with one witness suggesting the van drove more than half a mile hitting people. The incident occurred in the Yonge Street and Finch Avenue area of the city, according to police, which is around 18 miles north of the city centre. It began around 1.30pm Toronto time on Monday.
Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, was attending a meeting of G7 ministers in the city, but the gathering was not near the site of the incident.
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